Mil­i­tary to counter U.S. mis­sile shield

MOSCOW | The Rus­sian mil­i­tary must pre­pare to counter U.S. mis­silede­fense plans in Europe even as talks be­tween Moscow and Washington are on­go­ing, Pres­i­dent Dmitry Medvedev said Tues­day.

Mr. Medvedev told a meet­ing of Rus­sia’s top mil­i­tary brass that the coun­try “isn’t shut­ting the door to di­a­logue,” but nev­er­the­less must get ready to take mil­i­tary coun­ter­mea­sures.

The U.S. says the NATO mis­silede­fense plan is aimed at de­flect­ing po­ten­tial mis­sile threats from Iran, but Moscow fears that in the next few years it will grow pow­er­ful enough to un­der­mine Rus­sia’s nu­clear de­ter­rent.

“By 2017-2018, we must be fully pre­pared, fully armed,” Mr. Medvedev said in tele­vised com­ments, re­fer­ring to his ear­lier threat to aim mis­siles at the U.s.-led NATO mis­sile shield if no agree­ment is reached.